BOTCH: Sure. He knows. (Botch is seventeen years old and enjoys a reputation as a ladies’ man. He is a good-looking boy with a magnificent profile and a thick-lipped mouth from which the name Botch — short for “Bacia mi,” Kiss me — was derived. His father works in a restaurant in the Wall Street area. His mother is dead. His older sister takes care of the house. He also has a younger brother, and he is determined to “break both his arms” if the kid ever gets involved in gang-busting. His reputation as a lover is based on the fact that he went to bed with a young married girl on the block. The gang beat up the girl’s husband when he came around looking for Botch afterward. Botch has visited the girl regularly ever since. He thinks she is afraid to refuse him, but he has never told this to the gang. The gang considers him a man of the world, and he would not shatter this illusion for anything.)
DIABLO: You ever had a Spanish girl, Botch?
CONCHO: Look who he’s asking. The master!
BOTCH (with dignity): I don’t like to talk about what I had or didn’t have.
CONCHO: Anything that walks with a skirt on, this guy has had. He’s modest. He’s a gentleman.
BOTCH (with the same dignity): If you was a girl, would you like some guy telling what he done or didn’t do with you?
CONCHO: I wouldn’t, but thank God I ain’t a girl. Besides, everybody knows about you and Alice. Even that banana she’s got for a husband.
BOTCH: Little man, there are some things we don’t talk about. Inform him, Diablo.
BUD: Hey, talkin’ about bananas.
(He gestures toward the door with his head. Danny Di Pace has just entered the candy store. Bud surveys him with unconcealed and immediate malice. There is a marked difference in the appearance of the two boys, and perhaps this is responsible for the instantaneous antagonism Bud feels. For he is truly ugly, a boy who — at the age of sixteen — is already beginning to lose his hair. His face festers with acne. His nose is gross, the bones having healed crookedly after being shattered in a street fight when he was fourteen. He is short and squat, and at one time he was called Ape by the boys. He discouraged this by beating up three members of the gang. He is now called Bud, which he considers more dashing than Charles, his given name, or Charlie, his childhood nickname. He does not like to talk about sex. He has never kissed a girl in his life. He knows this is because girls consider him ugly. Looking at Danny Di Pace, who, at the age of fourteen, stands erect and tall in the doorway of the candy store, his red hair neatly combed, surveying the place with the secure knowledge of his good looks, Bud is glad the sex talk is ending, glad this smug intruder has come into their hangout looking for trouble.)
DIABLO (whispering): Who’s that?
BUD: Beats me. He looks like a banana.
BOTCH: That’s the new kid moved in at 327. Up the block.
DIABLO: Yeah?
BOTCH: He used to live over on the next street when he was little. He just moved back from someplace out on Long Island.
DIABLO: Where on Long Island?
BOTCH: I don’t know. Someplace where they got the plane factories. His mother knows mine from when they were kids. She was up the house the other day.
DIABLO: We got branches in some Long Island towns, you know.
BOTCH: Yeah, but this guy’s a coolie, I think. Look at him.
(Danny has purchased a pack of cigarettes. He tears off the cellophane top, rips the package open and puts a cigarette between his lips. He is lighting it when Bud walks over to him.)
BUD: Hey, got a butt?
DANNY (shaking one loose, extending the pack): Sure. Help yourself. (He smiles. He is obviously making a thrust at friendship.)
BUD (taking the pack): Thanks. (He strikes the pack against his hand, shaking loose one cigarette. He tucks this behind his ear. Then he shakes loose another.) For later. (He smiles, then shakes a half-dozen cigarettes into the palm of his hand.) In case any of the boys want one. (He is about to hand the pack back to Danny. He changes his mind, shakes another half dozen into his palm.) I got a very big family, and they all smoke. (He hands Danny the near-empty pack.)
DANNY (studies it for a moment; then, handing the pack to Bud): Here. Keep the rest.
BUD (smirking): Why, thanks, kid. Hey, thanks.
DANNY: And buy me another pack. Pall Mall’s the brand.
BUD: What?
DANNY: You heard me. I ain’t running a Salvation Army soup kitchen. Those butts cost me twenty-seven cents. You can just shell out the same for a fresh pack.
BUD: You can just go to hell, little man.
(He turns to go. Danny claps his hand on Bud’s shoulder and whirls him around, then drops his hand immediately, spreading his legs wide, bunching his fists at his sides.)
DANNY: I still ain’t got the cigarettes.
BUD: You touch me again, little man, and you’re gonna get a hell of a lot more than the cigarettes. Believe me.
JOEY (coming around the counter, wiping his hands on a rag): Cut that out. I don’t want no trouble in here, you understand? (To Danny) You get out of here, you little snotnose.
DANNY: Not until he buys me a new pack of cigarettes.
BUD (turning away from him): Don’t hold your breath, kid. I ain’t—
(But Danny clamps his hand onto Bud’s shoulder a second time. This time he does not spin him around. He pulls him backward, off balance, and through the open door of the candy store, hurling him onto the street against the snow banked near the curb. Bud strikes the snow and then leaps erect, bracing himself with the natural instincts of a street fighter. It is very cold on the street and, as a result, the street is almost empty. The two boys face each other, their breaths pluming from their open mouths. Bud is the first to move. He comes at Danny with his fists clenched, and Danny sidesteps agilely and — as Bud passes — clobbers him at the back of his head, swinging both hands, which are clenched together like a mallet. Bud feels the blow. It knocks him off his feet and to the pavement. He is still on the ground when the other boys swarm out of the candy store. Concho makes a move toward Danny, but Diablo stops him.
Bud is on his feet now. There is no anger on his face. All rage has been replaced by the cold deadening logic of the battle. He knows now that Danny is not a pushover. He knows, too, that he is being watched by the other boys in the gang, and that his honor is at stake. Without hesitation, moving intuitively and economically, he reaches into his pants pocket, takes out a switch blade and snaps it open.)
BUD: Okay, pal.
DANNY: You better put that away before I ram it down your throat.
BUD: We’ll see who’s gonna ram what where!
(He charges at Danny, the knife extended. He is kicked instantly and excruciatingly in the groin, the impetus of his rush adding to the power of the blow. He doubles over, the knife still clenched in his hand. Danny reaches down, seizing him by the collar, jerking him to his feet and slamming him up against the snowbank. The knife drops from Bud’s hand. Danny hits him once, a short sharp blow that drops Bud to the pavement again. He lies there very still as Danny picks up the knife, steps on the blade and snaps it off at the handle. He reaches down for Bud then, rolls him over and counts out twenty-seven cents in change from his pocket, no more, no less. The other boys watch. Danny gets to his feet and faces them.)
DANNY: Anybody else want to settle this now? Or do I wait for some dark night to get stabbed in the back?